


Imagine Olicity: A Recurring Nightmare (Gifset + Ficlet)

by catvampcrazines



Series: Imagine Olicity [4]
Category: Arrow - Fandom
Genre: +, Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Ficlet, Gifset, olicity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 16:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1989477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catvampcrazines/pseuds/catvampcrazines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver has a recurring nightmare in which Felicity needs a break after years of loving each other from their respective roles: meaningful but careful touches while never, ever, saying what they need to out loud. Never pushing things further.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imagine Olicity: A Recurring Nightmare (Gifset + Ficlet)

**Oliver has a recurring nightmare in which Felicity needs a break after years of loving each other from their respective roles: meaningful but careful touches while never, ever, saying what they need to out loud. Never pushing things further.**

"It’s finally starting to chip away at me, changing the way I act around you, and I don’t want that. I’ve always been able to accept it, our dynamic… I think I still can. I just need time to patch up and find a new way to process it. Who we are… What this life is… I still need you—I mean  _it_. I need to sort myself out.  _Don’t look at me like that, Oliver._  I’ll be back. I’m still your partner—your… _ **Give me time**_ _ **.**_ ”

For Dream!Oliver, he’s taken aback by the realization that he’s boxed Felicity into creating her own compartmentalizations; all these years willing because she  _loves_  him and he loves her and she’d never walked away… and he’d never pushed her away.

 **He’d never thought that what had felt like continuous, thin, paper cuts - painful but light to bleed and quick to heal - had been happening to her much more frequently.**  The marks had surpassed tiny cuts she could ignore, caused her to choose a direction that would still keep them together but sacrifice some part of her.

Suddenly, it’s gone too far and it’s the easiest thing to flip the switch for this beautiful, stubborn,  _clever_ , woman. She searches too hard to find a way to keep what they can have. She loves and understands him this much, but gives until she feels like pieces are missing.  _He feels like she’s becoming a strange echo of him, in a way._

He’s about to beg her, change their definitions because he can’t do this to her anymore. To  _them_. He’s hit hard with a need to apologize and help her heal, fade some of the scars caused by keeping them static for so long.

He can finally breathe out the words freely, without pretense, and  **he wakes up, his chest _burning_.**

[» **— > **](http://catvampcrazines.tumblr.com/tagged/myarrow)

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like Oliver dreaming that frequently enough through the years would affect his view on just how open Felicity could be… and how she might be stubborn and steely enough to be unapologetic about throwing herself into living in that place that they have going on. Because she won’t leave him without something like what they have.
> 
> It might also disturb him how complacent he was (in the dream) to live in it with her. Unhealthy as not moving on or growing was, their relationship could feel very good. Almost normal. 
> 
> With the exception of never admitting to a relationship or touching each other much past what we’ve seen in the first two seasons.
> 
> The dream shows that she buckles a bit because she is actually hurting, as much as she hates to admit it at that stage, and knows that something needs to be fixed—but doesn’t feel like she can ask him, so she tries to remedy it herself.
> 
>  
> 
> This is wrong, of course, if they have a hope of being together. It all became wrong when they’d settled way too comfortably into this. I imagine Oliver (in the dream and in RL) is horrified by it:
> 
> And, one day, about a year and a half from now, not so far into the future that it could be the dream’s timeline, she finds him staring and staring at her, with a nervous intent that makes her palms sweat.
> 
> He’d added pensive-eyeing-of-Felicity to his repertoire not too long ago, but always avoided her questioning with charm and some practiced but transparent grace. This time seems different.
> 
> And he opens his mouth, and he tells her about the dream, and he tells her that he loves her.
> 
> It’s probably the quietest he’s ever seen/heard her.
> 
> He goes back to pensively staring at her, wiping his palms on his jeans, waiting for her to say…something.


End file.
